The perfect March dress

I have found the perfect dress to wear in March, well actually I think it could be a perfect anytime dress, but it will certainly work for that strange mid-season weather-world where you want to wear something more spring like but the chill factor could mean you want to keep thermals and thick tights as an option too.

It is the navy blue knitted dress (above) from A.P.C and is wearable today with opaque tights and flats or boots, or in May with bare legs and sandals. I spotted it while in the new APC store in Redchurch Street, which is itself a very elegant and grown up space in which to shop. The APC website quotes it as being 210 euros, but it is £185 in the store.

I was very tempted, It is both trend-less and season-less, being made from a knitted linen boucle and all the better for it. A grown up wardrobe is built on beautiful building blocks of reliable style to which you can add trended excitement as you see fit, this dress could be with you for years and of course navy blue goes beautifully with pink.

It also has a built in petticoat. Wearing a petticoat is properly grown up dressing and improves the hang of a dress no-end. However gorgeous you are, see-through dresses without under-slips border on the ‘Madonna pretending she’s still 25’ concept and we all know that’s a bad move. At vintage fairs I often come across 50s and 60s dresses with petticoats built in, or with tiny press-stud loops at the shoulder seams to keep your own petticoat in place, so I’d like to start a campaign to bring this back please.

Is there a word for this type of season-less style (with or without petticoat), ‘Classic’ always sounds such a dull downer of a word when used to describe clothes attached to our age, even when well meant, I have visions of neglected corners of Spa Town department stores stuffed with rails of beige polyester slacks whenever the word is used. Wardrobe constants? Perfect pieces? Any suggestions?

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I am not a dress wearer but I certainly can see that this is a wonderful wardrobe staple – the thing for me is that it is in my fave colour navy! I love navy and it is so hard to find and yet it is such a flattering colour and you can wear it with so many colours and I know whilst I utter these words I sound hopelessly old lady!

I am liking your site – very clean and clear and with good suggestions. Your navy not-classic-but-really-eternal navy dress is very tempting. The touch about the little press-studded tabs to ensure a perfect hang is so very well observed.
I have one problem with navy. I agree that – being an actual colour – it is much more flattering than black. The problem is that for ten years I wore a(n often scruffy) school uniform and in navy I often have to revisit that schoolgirl self.
But now I’m remembering that for my daughter’s wedding a long narrow-skirted navy velvet suit with a loose long jacket. That was good. Perhaps it was the velvet. W

Wendy, totally with you with the school uniform thing, but navy is beautiful enough to get over that initial thought, love your textured velvet suit memory, velvet’s a fab place to start with navy. Also thanks for the nice words on the site! A

I always think the slightly euphemistic “useful” is helpful, when trying to persuade yourself that buying yet another thing is actually a good idea.Has thrifty overtones.Also, Rachel Riley’s dresses have those poppered loops on the shoulders – her clothes have such nice vintage-y details.